About
Towel Defense was created in just 40 hours during a local Game Jam in Nantes, centered around the theme “Duality”. Our team of five developers built a local 1v1 competitive strategy game in Unity, where one player defends while the other attacks.
As project lead and gameplay developer, I designed and implemented core systems including enemy AI, pathfinding, combo mechanics, and monster spawning. The game was fully playable at the end of the jam, complete with menu, options, and a balanced competitive loop.
We won Best Project of the Game Jam, receiving multiple sub-awards for originality, polish, and execution.
🎮 Play it here: https://crystobal.itch.io/towel-td
Project Info
- Role: Project Lead & Gameplay Programmer (AI, pathfinding, spawn system, item design)
- Team Size: 5 (all developers)
- Time Frame: 40 hours
- Engine: Unity
- Platform: Local 1v1 multiplayer
- Theme: Duality
🎮 Introduction
Towel Defense is a fast-paced local multiplayer strategy game where two players face off in radically different roles:
- 🛡️ The Defender builds sand towers and manages a resource economy to protect their sacred towel. They use mouse controls to place defenses and activate powers.
- ⚔️ The Attacker uses the keyboard to input combo sequences (e.g. “up – down – left – left”) to spawn waves of enemies. The more complex the combo, the stronger the monsters.
Each round lasts up to 5 minutes, with the attacker trying to destroy the towel and the defender trying to survive.
🧠 Core Mechanics
Asymmetric Roles
- The defender places towers and uses powers (slows, stuns, AOEs)
- The attacker spawns monsters and manipulates combos for power scaling
Resource Economy
- Defender spends sand to place towers and activate abilities
- Attacker relies on combo mastery to summon enemies efficiently
Sabotage Abilities
- Both players can use disruptive skills like:
- Reversing controls
- Causing mouse jitter
- Destroying buildings
- Obscuring vision
Enemy AI
- Enemies follow a pathfinding system I implemented during the jam
- Different enemy types are spawned depending on combo sequences
🧠 The combo system was one of the most fun to design – rewarding fast reflexes and strategic pattern building.
🎨 Visuals & Polish
- Custom hand-drawn sprites mixed with free assets from itch.io (Beach Day by tororojam)
- Animated enemy movements, explosions, and dynamic environment elements
- Victory screen with clear winner announcement at the end of each round
📤 Play the Game
📚 What I Learned
- Leading a full game team under extreme time constraints
- Designing asymmetric multiplayer gameplay with balanced win conditions
- Implementing responsive AI with real-time pathfinding in Unity
- Building a full input-driven combo system for enemy summoning
- Managing polish and gameplay depth during a short jam without feature creep
💡 The jury praised our creativity, fun factor, and strong thematic use — we were awarded Best Project along with several special mentions.